Background: The novel starts out rather slow to let the reader's experience the MCs character development as well the normal behaviour of someone living in this world. MC is a normal looking youth born to peasants and was recruited to a martial arts sect where he encounters his first tribulation as well as the Heaven Defying Treasure.

Treasure: It is small green bottle that can condense some liquid that can quickly mature plants/wood.

It does not boost his prowess directly but it provides him with a limitless amount of aged wood or plants for pill concocting or tool refining. Anything plant/wood related that matures with age, Han Li can benefit from.
Character: Han Li is not good or evil. He does not mind helping people if it does not disadvantage him. He also does not commit any typical immoral actions (Killing others for treasure is normal behaviour). He is patient, astute, sly and somewhat cowardly. Unlike other MCs, he will not venture for treasures if the risk is high but he will always keep his cool if his life is threatened. This calm under pressure as well as his wits allowed him to survive and profit in many dangerous situations, especially situations where he was forced into. Han li usually only focuses on cultivation and does not care for power or control.

Other Humans: The Young master syndrome is greatly minimized. Firstly, the enemies that he faces in the end are not explicitly enemies with a big "Arrogant Young Master" sign painted on his forehead and the encounters are especially varied. This makes the encounters feel more organic and natural, like some sort of natural flow or occurrence. Also, there are very little showing of young masters and there was only one real young master type character encountered as of chapter 1089. Seniority is determined by power and is strictly adhered to. The people in the world are not purely motivated by benefits like in WMW and are more motivated by normal emotions. No one finds trouble for no reason and everything flows naturally. Old characters are not forgotten and brought up naturally.

Cultivation: Qi Condensation -> Foundational Establishment -> Core formation -> Nascent Soul -> Deity Transformation. Han li has the worse talent known as the false spiritual roots that contains 4/5 elements (The lesser elements the better). Without the green bottle, he would died cultivating without ascending.

World: It is after the ancient era, QI is sparser, esoteric knowledge are lost, ancient cultivation materials are gone and it's much harder to ascend to the next realm after reaching the peak of deity transformation. It is the world of Sects and they normally compete against each other but will band together to fight a common enemy. The real sect leader will be a Nascent Soul Cultivator but a foundational establishment cultivator will be nominal leader and will take charge of the day to day operations.

Relationships: Han li would have cultivated the virgin technique to a very high level if not for the infamous plot element "Aphrodisiac". He currently has one true love (Aphrodisiac encounter) and one concubine for cultivation's sake

Progression: Peasant -> Martial Artist -> Doctor -> Vagrant Cultivator -> Sect Outer Disciple -> Sect Inner Disciple -> Vagrant Cultivator -> Sect Elder (Different Sect)

He suddenly lost his cultivation and have to start again. I don't mind when this happens but only when done well. Here it's just out of the blue in the most rage inducing way possible. He meets and save the twin of the girl he banged earlier and to repay him she drained his cultivation to restore her own. She's more powerful than him btw and after draining him she actually punch him for sleeping with her sister and act all high and mighty. It feels so cheap as I know this is just setup for the next arc. There's really no build up to him losing his cultivation and is just something that randomly happens.

Once again, out of the blue cultivation lost. Not permanent this time but more of a I must seal my cultivation since someone put a cursed on me. It was so random - He traveled to a new place when he reached mid stage Nascent Soul and some random ass cultivator picked a fight with him spiraling into a group gang up on him and someone put a curse on him. It's literally setup for the next arc which feels cheap as hell.

The story is about a kid who can't be anymore mediocre whether in looks or talents, got dragged into the cultivation world and step by step climbing up in power while bitterly trying to preserve his own life by making use of a treasure that does not increase his cultivation talent at all. The first hundred chapters as a form of prologue is slow, but the "slow" is just right. You can't expect too much from an all-round average kid, even being able to improve at his current stage is already a feast for someone like him.

What makes this novel worth reading:

1. There is this saying about the more hollow the drum, the louder it sounds. People with low intelligence and low talent are the best blabbers. I always think that the cultivation world where only power speaks volume, nonsensical verbal arguments from every opponent is too much too unrealistic. This novel precisely avoids that. In a world where danger lurks everywhere, where there is always someone stronger or has better treasures than you, it's easy to lose one's life. Even no matter how much backing one has, if they die then that's it. If everyone is a hollow drum, then Jianghu is nothing but a joke.

That's why it's delightful to see that the majority of characters (enemies included) are NOT brainless idiots with foul mouths that spout 5+ line paragraphs. When there is a need to fight they fight. Everyone (even demonic beasts) priorities their life and has certain degree of guard against any opponent even if they are stronger in power. Heck yeah that's more like it.

2. As mentioned MC is average in everything, even his personality (he is no villain nor hero). His treasure is prolly the only thing that makes him worth writing a story about. However, the spotlight shifts to him thanks to his incisiveness (one example would be his low resistance to beauty but refusing to suffer for it). He absolutely knows how to THINK. From the clever use of the treasure to making the right choices in tough situations, by constantly activating his brains he is able to stay alive and still withholding the bottom line of his principles.

This incisiveness doesn't come out of nowhere, but painstakingly learned from the first 100 chaps that meticulously built up his foundation knowledge of the cruel cultivation world. It's fun to see him grow and facing challenges with his own wit rather than resorting to glaringly blatant plot armor or deus ex.

3. No useless fillers so far *throws confetti*

Why you might find it boring: pill pill pill tool tool tool. That's the most of it for powering up so far. However it's only sensible. His treasure aids in pills, with his talent he won't get anywhere far without pills, and wouldn't survive long without good tools. Think of this as contribution to his intellect though, knowing how to use tools is a talent for survival. Not seeing much of fighting techniques is a little sad for me, but no OP shiny fancy name actions that kill in less than a millisecond is also good. I do hope to see good techniques later on though. Anyhow, I would like to conclude this by referring back to my first point.

The story start well, you get your usual Xianxia setting in a mortal world at the bottom of the food chain, he somehow gain a bottle that magically gather energy from moonlight and transform it into a liquid that accelerate the growth of any plant, as we all know plants leads to alchemy & pills, so you can already see how OP and cheat this item is.

MC has a good temperament, hes not cocky and is really cautious as anyone should be in this kind of world even thought sometime the author has to make him do stupid decision to move the plot in a certain direction hes not himself stupid, he can be obsessive about few things but that where the personality stops, he doesn't have anything that set him apart from the rest.

The fights... here is the big picture, as long as anyone in the same realm as you in this novel has OP items/weapons he will easily dispatch you, the MC doesn't rely on some special power or technique, all he does is get them OP items and spam the sh*t out of them to overpower anyone in the same layer of power as him.

The side characters ? there are few females that appear and get some weak spot light along the journey like his wife for example but they get removed from the plot for hundreds of chapters and basically have no characterization and as a reader you will hold no bond with them.

After the first thousand chapter you will start to feel the loopy plot, it start to feel boring and slow like a quagmire engulfing your mind, but it's not annoying enough to make you drop it so you continue reading and sink more into it, there are some exciting events along the road that will make you breath some fresh air and steel your mind into sinking more as well as some expectation of yours that you need to meet.

Is it alright to skip dozens of chapters in this novel ? yes you can easily follow the story even if you do that.

I will give this novel a 2.25/5

The whole story is all about one dude cultivating and doing his best to stay alive in the cutthroat world of cultivators. He tries his best to cultivate, ignoring most other things in life other than cultivating, trying his best to not have enemies, and pretty much try to stay alive. Every realm he cultivates into he gains extra lifetime, but still not an immortal, so he has to cultivate more. And when he becomes immortal, the story ends. Rather cliffhanger type of ending, but I suppose it was expected since the title already describes the story.

Han Li was chosen by luck to become the disciple of one of the most important figures of a minor sect, a god doctor, with another child of his age. They were both educated in the art of medicine while they also obtained a secret chant from the doctor Mo which should be cultivated for one year before being tested. Han Li manages to somehow reach the first realm while the other kid didn't and instead was given a physical cultivation method. Little did Han Li know that the truth was quite different. He was actually a human incubator while the other kid after developing a few levels was killed and then used as a puppet. Slowly he understand the danger he is in and starts training to be able to fight against this doctor that was also a supreme expert.

actually cuts off all his ties to the mortal world, leaving his sect, his friend, and even his family

cultivation